1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to computers and software, and more particularly, to a system and method for creating and sharing purchasing lists in a network system.
2. Related Art
As known in the art, the Internet is a world-wide collection of networks and gateways that use the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite of protocols to communicate with one another. At the heart of the Internet is a backbone of high speed data communication lines between major nodes or host computers consisting of thousands of commercial, government, educational, and other computer systems that route data and messages.
World Wide Web (WWW) refers to the total set of interlinked hypertext documents residing on hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) servers all around the world. Documents on the WWW, called pages or web pages, are written in hypertext mark-up language (HTML) identified by uniform resource locators (URL) that specify the particular machine and pathname by which a file can be accessed and transmitted from node to node to the end user under HTTP. A web site is a related group of these documents and associated files, scripts, subprocedures, and databases that are served up by an HTTP server on the WWW.
Users need a browser program and an Internet connection to access a web site. Browser programs, also called “web browsers,” are consumer applications that enable a user to navigate the Internet and view HTML documents on the WWW, another network, or the user's computer. Web browsers also allow users to follow codes called “tags” embedded in an HTML document, which associate particular words and images in the document with URLs so that a user can access another file that may be half way around the world, at the press of a key or the click of a mouse.
One type of document that consumers access is merchant advertisements. The recent rapid growth of information applications on international public packet switch computer networks, such as the Internet, suggests that public computer networks have the potential to establish a new kind of open marketplace for goods and services. As web pages are used internationally, it is highly desirable for manufacturers and merchants to be able to advertise their goods and services to as many potential customers as possible. Currently, on the Internet the primary way to advertise is through the use of advertisement banners that consist of trademarks, text, buttons or images comprised of hyperlinks, which transport a user to a particular website to access information regarding goods and services.
Unfortunately, as the Internet provides public access to advertisements and allows purchases on a merchant's server, there is no ability for the consumer to collect and save information regarding items desired for purchase that the consumer may wish to keep organized and private. There is also a lack of ability for the consumer to share information regarding items desired for purchase with others in an organized manner.